Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said Friday he would convene the country's new parliament within 10 days and vowed his full support to the incoming coalition government. Speaking at the opening of water-supply project in southern Sindh province, Musharraf said the international community recognized that he had fulfilled his pledge to hold free and fair elections. “The national and provincial assemblies sessions will be called in a week or one and half weeks. There will be no hurdle to this,” state-run Pakistan television showed him as saying. “I promise if peace is maintained, I will fully support the new coalition governments,” Musharraf said, without elaborating. Musharraf said that moderate forces had triumphed in the elections. “All political parties should demonstrate prudence and focus on governance and this is possible only if all of them demonstrate peace,” Musharraf said. The new federal and provincial governments should sustain the process of development and fight the scourge of extremism and terrorism, he said. Musharraf's aides have denied speculative media reports that he intends to resign, and on Thursday General Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief Musharraf promoted in November after relinquishing his dual role as president and Chief of Army Staff, called on all sides to work together. The Election Commission Thursday night officially announced results of 331 of 342 seats in the National Assembly. It confirmed the Pakistan People's Party of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto came out on top with 120, though 11 seats in the new assembly will be filled later because of court disputes or a delay in voting after the death of a candidate. The commission allocated 60 seats for women and 10 for religious minorities proportionate to the number of seats parties won out of the 272 openly contested in the polls. The PPP has delayed naming its candidate for the prime minister's slot, but Bhutto's widower and new party leader Asif Ali Zardari is ineligible as he does not hold a seat. Long-time deputy chairman Makhdoom Amin Fahim is widely tipped for the post. The PPP has been in coalition talks with nearest rival the party of Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister Musharraf deposed. Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or PML (N) has notched 90 seats so far. The third main member of the proposed PPP-led coalition is the Awami National Party (ANP), an ethnic Pashtun nationalist group that trounced the Islamist Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance in North West Frontier Province. The vanquished pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League holds 15 percent of the seats in the National Assembly, with just 51 to date. Its ally, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which mainly represents Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated to Pakistan from northern India after partition of the subcontinent in 1947, emerged as a major party in the cities of Bhutto's home province of Sindh, though the PPP will lead the provincial government. __
